An Actual Serious Post

In case I end up missing or dead, here's the story...

I have a stalker. Kind of. He hasn't been around in a while but he came into the store tonight for the first time in about three weeks and it wouldn't have been so freaky if he hadn't sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes after we closed. Just sat there, messed around with his dog that was in the bed of his truck, and sat in his vehicle for a while too. I didn't go by the door to see any of this, but my manager and another co-worker stood there and watched him until he finally left. They even made sure he actually drove off, and not over to Best Buy or around the store or anything. I just didn't want to leave until he was gone, I don't want him to know which car is mine. The scary part is, he might actually already know, and here's why. I guess I better start at the beginning...

A few months ago I was working in the copy center and answered the phone with the usual "Thank you for calling Office Depot, this is Sarah, how may I direct your call..." He proceeded to keep asking me questions about a router, then asked for my phone number and if it would be okay for him to call me because he'd like to take me out on a date. I basically completely ignored it because I was shocked that someone would ask someone out on the phone - especially when supposedly he didn't even know who I was or what I looked like (or so I thought at the time) and said I would page a technology associate to assist him with his router questions. He said he would be in the store shortly and he'd like to talk to me. CREEPY!

Anyway, copy center workers have these aprons we wear to keep pens and notepads and rubber fingers and white out and assorted copy center necessities handy. I did not have my name tag on, it was completely covered by my apron and the side my name tag was even on was completely facing away from this guy when he came in the store. Yet someone, when he saw me getting paper to fill the copiers, the first thing he says is, "Hey Sarah..." then proceeds to ask me yet again for my phone number. How the fuck does this guy know my name? There were five other girls also working that night, ANY of them could have been Sarah, any of them could have been who he spoke to on the phone. But he knew who I was. At first I didn't think anything of it until I realized my name tag was not visible and I have never seen this guy before in my life. I'm pretty good at remembering customers because I usually make fun of most of them, and I was certain I had never seen this guy before in my life.

Anyway, I rush off away from him with my box of paper saying I was busy, once again paging a technology associate for him. THEN, AFTER he gets the router he needs, he comes over to me AGAIN in the copy center and proceeds to ask me for my number because we should go on a date. Finally I was over the weirdness of it all and told him I appreciated what it took to ask out a complete stranger but I was not interested in dating right now, blah blah, thanks but no thank you. He just nodded and smiled, then walked away saying okay.

If you thought that's where this story ends, you're so wrong.

He came into the store THREE MORE TIMES that week. First he returned the computer he'd purchased earlier in the day (before he came back for the router. At first I thought maybe he'd bought the computer earlier in my shift, but we figured out he'd been in there a couple hours before I even had to work, so that was not how he knew who I was.) Then he bought a new computer. Then he just came in to look around. Every time he comes in though, he will make a point to come over and talk to me or just kind of hover around, especially if I am in the copy center, where I am pretty much on my own. I don't mean so he can try and steal me or anything, I just mean that since the copy center is in the corner, he could pretty much stand there and watch me without being noticed by anyone else, especially if he is near the copiers. One night not long after all that, he came in and asked me where an item would be on hold that he had ordered. Walked straight past all the registers and came straight to me, in the COPY CENTER, to ask about hold items. I sent him right on back to the front, I did not want to deal with him at all even though I knew full well where hold items are kept. He came in once a week or so after that, then it got to once every two weeks, and now tonight. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled.

I was closing down registers when he came in and he had this weird smile on his face when I looked up and saw him come in. Tom helped him with some markers or something and said he wasn't acting weird at all, but Zac, who had previously helped him with all that computer nonsense, was creeped out by him. So then tonight when he comes through the line and I'm closing registers still, he smiles at me and stares at me for a little bit. I completely ignored him and did not make any eye contact. Then Manager Ken watched from the door until he left the parking lot.

I'm not really that worried about it, not right now anyway. If he starts coming in a lot again, then that will be cause for concern.

On a completely unrelated and happy note, Ken (my friend Ken, not my manager Ken) came to Lincoln on Friday and took me out to the bars to make up for the fact that he's missed my last three birthdays. We had a lot of fun, just had a small booth at Sandy's, drank, and did a lot of people watching. We had a really good talk about everything, why things turned out the way they did, and what either of us would change if we could change any of it. In a nutshell, it was very good and therapeutic for both of us. After the bars closed he went back home to Wahoo and I slept for 6 or so hours in an attempt to sober up for work at 9 on Saturday morning. That did not work out as well as I'd hoped. But at least it made work more fun. And Manager Ken thought it was hilarious.